I'm really not a film buff. I barely pay attention to what's playing in the cinemas, I don't watch trailers or keep track of when any movie is coming out. "Going to the cinema" is mainly an excuse to leave the house and hang out with my friends.
Video games, on the other hand, is something I'm deeply passionate about. I understand how the medium works, I pay attention to how the industry is evolving, I know all the genres and their conventions, even if I'm only capable of playing a handful of them (impossible to play everything; do you know how many games get released every month and how long games tend to be).
This is all just preamble so you know my background before I start yapping about something I probably really don't know anything about. It's not like I'm totally clueless about movies; I got my favorite directors (Rian Johnson, Guillermo del Toro, Makoto Shinkai, I think) and I know the genres. There's the thrillers and the capers and the whoddnits and the horrors and the romcoms, et cetera, but I really only have a passing familiarity of most of them.
Hong Kong action flick is one of those genres I understand only conceptually. It has a lot of cool choreographed fights, right? Martials arts? Like, Jackie Chan, everyone knows who Jackie Chan is. But it's still far outside of my domain.
So I'm saying this as someone completely new to this sort of film, but really like video games as an art form: The Furious (2025) is really good.
It's also really violent, wow. Bones are cracked, metal pipes are swung, daggers are pulled out. A kid was killed within the first five minutes. It took a while to get used to the hyper violence; I needed to deliberately sandbox my discomfort before I can then appreciate everything else about those fights. It's fun to follow where each limbs are going, which body part are being targeted and defended, where each player can go with the space they got and how they can make use of their environment. I lack the experience to make a proper read of what happens on-screen, but I understood immediately that these fights are the latest of a long lineage of action films.
I also understood immediately that the fights are what this movie is all about; everything else is set dressing. The story feels like a classic tale: a daughter was kidnapped, and his mute father—who is suspiciously good at martial arts—is going to save her. There's just enough setup for you to know what's going on: oh the mom is dead, they're relatively poor but happy enough, the daughter is mad that her dad wanted to send her way, there's gang activity in the area. The classic tropes allow the story to be set up relatively quickly and then get these characters ready to do what they're meant for: FIGHT.
It reminds me so much of how video games are usually structured. There's the core gameplay—the combat in a JRPG, the platforming in platformers, the exploration in an open-world, etc—and that's probably what you want to get to quickly, but it's always more fun to immerse yourself into the game's world. So you've got a little setup: the princess was kidnapped and you need to get out there to save her! Dracula has taken over the world and you must fight your way through his castle! Suddenly you're not merely jumping from one platform or another, you're a hero out on a world-saving adventure.
In The Furious, it's like the fights are the core gameplay. The film is a progression of fights between different elaborate locations (as if different levels in a game) against enemies ranging from the horde of gansters (the random mooks) to stronger more recognizable characters (in gaming parlanche, these are the boss battles). Inbetween those fights you can get calmer moments that progress the story, reminding you who these characters are and letting you care more about them, while also moving you to the next cool fight stage.
Not all games put emphasis in their "core gameplay". A lot of games pay more attention to their story instead of using it as just vehicle for their gameplay (In fact, to me "gameplay" and "story" are all inseparable holistic part of the game, but that's another essay for another day). Obviously other film don't structure themselves this way either, but it really works for The Furious. You're here for the FIGHT SCENES. But the story bits give you just enough background to care about what happens in those FIGHT SCENES. It gives an extra boost to the meat of the film, which are themselves already cool and well-choreographed.
One of my favorite part of the movie, and I suppose this is a spoiler for the story so you can skip ahead, is the way the story seems to be resolved at the 3/4 part of it. Our heroes broke through the evil trafficker's headquarters and rescued all the kidnapped kids. The good cops overwhelmed the evil cops and helped those kids get home. The trafficking ring was stopped. The mobster bosses died killing each other. We saved the princess, the game can end and the credits roll.
But suddenly you see that the big bad did not die at all. There is also still that quiet, deadly, bow-wielding henchman with him. The final stage was not after all the headquarter where the kids were kept, but the police station where everyone thought they were safe.
The closest analogue that came to my mind—because I'm a dumb gamer who think this movie is awesome because it's just like a video game—is that this is a bonus boss, or a true ending final boss. Playing normally, the game would end after the kids were safe, but if you did some things—if you pay more attention to the story—you can unlock this part of the game, letting you experience the hardest boss battle in the game.
And it was so awesome. Hype as hellll. I lack the vocabulary and genre knowledge to properly convey how delighted I was with that final boss battle, the way the players got into position, the stage set, the fight progressing and splitting off and converging. It's not narratively necessary； the story can be over before that and I'd say it was worth the watch. But of course this movie isn't really about the story. It's about the FIGHT SCENES. And they wanted to give you the coolest fight scene of all time.
Conclusion: The Furious is so cool, it makes me want to watch other martial arts action movies. What a joy and wonder to discover a whole new genre to get into.
